The Romance of the Forest, interspersed with some pieces of poetry.Radcliffe, Ann Ward
General
The Romance of the Forest, interspersed with some pieces of poetry.
Radcliffe, Ann Ward
Gothic fiction
sentiment, seconded by a selfish motive, induced the Marquis to
compromise with La Motte. Of quick and inflammable passions, he had
observed the beauty of Adeline with an eye of no common regard, and he
resolved to spare the life of La Motte upon no other condition than the
sacrifice of this unfortunate girl. La Motte had neither resolution nor
virtue sufficient to reject the terms--the jewels were restored, and he
consented to betray the innocent Adeline. But as he was too well
acquainted with her heart to believe that she would easily be won to the
practice of vice, and as he still felt a degree of pity and tenderness
for her, he endeavoured to prevail on the Marquis to forbear precipitate
measures, and to attempt gradually to undermine her principles by
seducing her affections. He approved and adopted this plan: the failure
of his first scheme induced him to employ the stratagems he afterwards
pursued, and thus to multiply the misfortunes of Adeline.
Such were the circumstances which had brought La Motte to his present
deplorable situation. The day of trial was now come, and he was led from
prison into the court, where the Marquis appeared as his accuser. When
the charge was delivered, La Motte, as is usual, pleaded Not guilty, and
the Advocate Nemours, who had undertaken to plead for him, afterwards
endeavoured to make it appear that the accusation, on the part of the
Marquis de Montalt, was false and malicious. To this purpose he
mentioned the circumstance of the latter having attempted to persuade
his client to the murder of Adeline: he further urged that the Marquis
had lived in habits of intimacy with La Motte for several months
immediately preceding his arrest, and that it was not till he had
disappointed the designs of his accuser, by conveying beyond his reach
the unhappy object of his vengeance, that the Marquis had thought proper
to charge La Motte with the crime for which he stood indicted. Nemours
urged the improbability of one man's keeping up a friendly intercourse
with another from whom he had suffered the double injury of assault and
robbery; yet it was certain that the Marquis had observed a frequent
intercourse with La Motte for some months following the time specified
for the commission of the crime. If the Marquis intended to prosecute,
why was it not immediately after his discovery of La Motte? and if not
then, what had influenced him to prosecute at so distant a period?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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